


Transfusion

by Winter_of_our_Discontent



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Codependency, First Time, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Slash, blood-drinking, hints of dub-con, vampire!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:00:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_of_our_Discontent/pseuds/Winter_of_our_Discontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But at those moments, with Sherlock pressed against his body, arms wrapped around John, John’s hand in Sherlock’s hair, the feeling of Sherlock’s mouth against John’s bare flesh, John could know Sherlock was back, could ground himself in his presence in a way that helped banish his lingering nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goddessdster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessdster/gifts).



“You taste sad. How can you _taste_ sad?” Sherlock said, wonderingly, more to himself than to John.

“You tell me, you’re the vampire,” John said, doing his best to keep his voice level. He turned and walked from the study into the bathroom to inspect his shoulder. “Not as bad as last time,” he called back to Sherlock as he dabbed gently at the puncture marks with an antiseptic wipe. “Almost no bruising. Shouldn’t scar.” 

The first time Sherlock had fed from John he’d had trouble controlling himself, biting down far harder than necessary, leaving John with a bruise the size of his fist that he’d done his best to cover with sleeves kept buttoned all the way down. The scars had ended up as tiny jagged ovals that reminded him of nothing so much as miniature gunshot wounds. He’d found himself rubbing his wrist absentmindedly at work, the rough texture grounding him in a reality where Sherlock was alright, was back, was… wasn’t dead.

“You’ll want to take Paracetamol before you go to bed,” Sherlock said, suddenly behind him.

“Christ,” John said, dropping the tape. “I’m still not used to you moving that fast.” Sherlock didn’t respond, quietly waiting until John had retrieved the tape to examine John’s neck and shoulder area. He leaned close enough that John would have felt Sherlock’s warm breath on his neck, if he’d still breathed. They’d been practicing so that Sherlock would remember to do so around others, but he tended not to bother when it was just them. John felt the hairs on his neck stand up, his body reacting with some distant racial memory to the presence of a predator in such close proximity.

Deftly plucking the tape from John’s hand, Sherlock secured the gauze pad to the wounds with a professionalism any of John’s colleagues might have envied.

“Not used to that either,” John admitted, transfixed by the sight of his injury being tended by invisible hands in the mirror. “Isn’t it weird, not seeing yourself?”

“You can see me,” Sherlock stated, as though that was an answer.

*

The next morning, John wandered into the sitting room to discover Sherlock crouched motionless on the couch; his pose reminiscent of one of Notre Dame’s gargoyles. He made no move to acknowledge John’s entrance. At times like this it wasn’t hard to imagine Sherlock was a vampire so much as it was to remember he’d actually _not_ been one previously.

“I suspect your blood is being flavoured by the chemicals of your body’s moods.”

“Makes sense,” John said, stretching his arms back over his head and listening for the resulting pops. “Shame you can’t feed off suspects, you might be able to learn something.”

Sherlock shuddered. “The thought of drinking from any of them is appalling.”

“Yeah, hate to think where some of them have been.”

“I was running rings around London’s criminals for years. I’m hardly in need of the additional help.” Sherlock paused, then added, “Blood sharing is unexpectedly… intimate. I’ve no desire to share it with anyone.”

“Besides me.”

“Don’t be tedious, John. Yes, of course you.”

And because John couldn’t resist needling him, he added, “And Mycroft.”

“What?” Sherlock said, his body language resembling nothing so much as a cat splashed with water. He looked over at John, trying and failing to conceal a grin, and pulled his body back into a more controlled pose.

“Of course not, John. Think of the calories.” 

“Mrs. Hudson?”

“Bad for her health.”

“Lestrade?”

“Bad for mine.”

“Anderson?”

“So I can see if it’s actually possible to _taste_ stupid?”

“Molly?”

“Best I don’t give her any more material for her fantasies.”

John’s murmur of agreement turned into a yawn as he plodded into the kitchen to make himself breakfast. “‘s’pose you’re stuck with me, then. Unless you’d like to switch to all bagged.”

Sherlock’s eating habits now were practically as abstemious as he’d been when he was human. He only seemed to need periodic pints of donated blood from Bart’s supplemented with drinking from John as often as they’d deemed safe. Or maybe it was the other way around and the hospital blood was a supplement for the fresh? Like many things about Sherlock’s new status, John wasn’t sure of all the details, and didn’t quite know how to ask.

At first he’d just been so grateful Sherlock was back, he hadn’t cared how it had happened beyond the fact that it _had_.

“No,” Sherlock said. “The fresh blood is… better. If that’s alright?” in the same tone that another person might have used to ask for a seat on the Tube. Someone who didn’t know Sherlock as well as John did would have completely missed the tiny thread of insecurity woven into it.

John turned from his tea to see Sherlock in the doorway. He set the mug down on the counter and walked over to him. “Sherlock, I said whatever you needed, and I meant it.” 

John stared up at Sherlock, attempting reassurance. Sherlock didn’t look very different; his skin was paler, but then he’d always been pale. The biggest change was to his pupils, which were currently shrunken to pinpoints in the brightly lit flat. 

The biting wasn’t particularly pleasurable, but it wasn’t that painful either, once the endorphins kicked in and as Sherlock got better at feeding. But at those moments, with Sherlock pressed against his body, arms wrapped around John, John’s hand in Sherlock’s hair, the feeling of Sherlock’s mouth against John’s bare flesh, John could _know_ Sherlock was back, could ground himself in his presence in a way that helped banish his lingering nightmares. The ones where this was a dream and Sherlock was gone forever.

Whatever Sherlock could read in John’s face must have been enough, because Sherlock gave a curt nod and then turned to get back to whatever he’d been doing before John had woken up.

*

They stumbled back up the steps to 221B, John still high on adrenaline and Sherlock on being amazing. He’d known exactly where the arms shipment was hidden, how they were smuggling them in, and how many members of the gang would be present to guard the merchandise. They’d still ended up having to chase down the only man they hadn’t immediately been able to subdue, and John had bruises on his knuckles and Sherlock was _brilliant._

John headed for the kitchen, too keyed up to even consider sleeping and vaguely aware that he was thirsty. He grabbed a glass from the designated ‘not to be used for experiments I’m serious about this Sherlock’ shelf and turned on the tap. Suddenly he felt a body pressing him against the counter, Sherlock’s long arms reaching around him to cage John in.

John froze. “Sherlock?” 

“John. I want…” Sherlock’s voice sounded harsh in his ear. “I… I need…” There was urgency in it, and desperation, and John fought a strange urge to turn around and try to comfort him, because Sherlock sounded unsure and a bit _lost_ and it was wrong, wasn’t it, because Sherlock wasn’t meant to sound like that. 

He could feel his own pulse, not fully slowed down, picking up speed again. If it sounded that loud in his head, how much louder must it have sounded to Sherlock, with his enhanced hearing?

Gently and slowly, John set the glass down in the sink. “What do you need, Sherlock?” _What do you need from me?_

“Can I… John. Can I bite you? I need to bite you. Now.”

Sherlock didn’t sound remotely in control of himself, and John wasn’t in any shape to stop him if things got out of hand. And right now, they were quite likely to get out of hand.

But Sherlock needed him. There was never really a choice.

John closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his hands gripping the edge of the countertop to steady himself. “Yes.”

He tilted his head slightly to the right. Sherlock grabbed John’s collar with his left hand, pulling it out of the way with such force that two of the buttons came away, the plastic making tiny clinking noises as they hit the linoleum. John had just enough time to hope he didn’t particularly like this shirt before he felt Sherlock’s fangs sink into the juncture between shoulder and neck.

John gave an involuntary shudder. He could tell Sherlock had bitten him more deeply than the last time, giving him a not-quite match for the wound still healing on the shoulder opposite.

Sherlock’s arms moved from the counter to encircle his torso, holding him in place. John set his hands over Sherlock’s forearms, neither gripping nor struggling, trying to convey through the touch that he was alright. That he was still consenting to this.

_Take whatever you need, because I would rather die than lose you again._

He’d donated his fair share of blood over the years, the closest and most obvious analogy to what they were doing, but as Sherlock had said, _this_ was intimate. This was an embrace, this was a connection, this was the feeling that his vitality, that his John-ness, was somehow being drawn out and into Sherlock along with his red cells, platelets, and plasma. 

Sherlock’s hair tickled against his cheek. 

John felt a warmth spreading through his body, radiating outward from the now-tingling pressure at his _trapezius._ He wondered what his blood felt like for Sherlock, the sensation of hot tea on a winter’s day?

He could feel himself growing flushed, as though whatever blood not drawing towards his flatmate was rushing towards the surface of his skin, leaving a hollow cavity in his chest.

John shuddered again, the movement drawing Sherlock’s arms even tighter, and somehow it felt like Sherlock’s presence began seeping into him, a reverse osmosis to fill the void he’d created. 

He felt the blood rushing between his legs now too, felt himself growing hard, still pressed uncomfortably against the cabinetry. John was growing lightheaded, all of his blood accounted for and apparently none of it reserved for his brain.  
¬  
Shit. This was not… this was not what they were. This was about what _Sherlock_ needed, and John had no right to… to be _getting off_ on it like a schoolboy.

“Sherlock. Sherlock!” John said, pushing against the sink’s edge for leverage. “That’s enough, don’t you think? _Sherlock, STOP,_ ” he ordered. 

Something about his Captain Watson voice must have finally gotten through to Sherlock. His grip slackened slightly, enough to allow John to twist around and face him. 

“Look, it’s…” whatever John had meant to say died on his lips as he got a good look at his flatmate. Sherlock’s eyes had gone entirely dark from pupils to sclera, a deep inky black like a raven’s feathers. 

“You taste _incredible._ ,” Sherlock said, voice low and awed. And apparently this _was_ what they were, whatever this was, because suddenly Sherlock was kissing him with the same bloody singlemindedness he’d seen earlier, hands firmly gripping the sides of John’s head. As if John would want to escape.

And Sherlock tasted like blood, like _John’s_ blood, and it should have been disgusting, it _was_ disgusting, his fangs were still slightly extended, and John had nicked his tongue on one of them, and Sherlock had _moaned_ , and it was the best thing John H. Watson had ever done.

“You taste like a murder,” Sherlock murmured. “A locked room…” He licked the shell of John’s ear. “…five bodies…” He snaked a hand down to palm John’s erection through his jeans and it was John’s turn to moan. “…with no visible marks.”

Whatever was happening between them was bound to be dangerous. But once again Sherlock was leading, and John would follow. He would always follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic as submitted to Holmestice ended here. I wasn't entirely happy with the original stopping point, so the next chapter is a more explicit continuation/ending of the story.
> 
> Sincerest thanks to my betas lareinenoire, analineblue, rosamund, and themegaloo, as well as my cheerleader bskizzle.


	2. Coda

This time it was John that grabbed Sherlock’s head to hold it in place, pressing his mouth fiercely against Sherlock’s and trapping Sherlock’s hand between their bodies. It didn’t allow for much individual attention to his erection, but was a fair trade for the feeling of Sherlock’s lanky body pressed against him, flesh warmer than his usual room temperature. 

John knew _he’d_ done that, that it was _his blood_ coursing through Sherlock’s veins, that he had been responsible in every possible sense for the hard length pressing against his inner thigh. The edges of his vision went a bit white.

“Oh god,” John panted, resting his forehead on Sherlock’s shoulder. “We have to…” 

“Stop?” Sherlock asked, in a tone of confusion.

“Hell no. No stopping. Not stopping,” John wedged his thigh firmly between Sherlock’s legs to show how very against stopping he in fact was. Sherlock made a low noise in the back of his throat and pushed back against it. “No. But I’m about to either pass out or come in my pants like a bloody teenager.” He bit down hard on the juncture between Sherlock’s neck and shoulder. “And that _would_ mean stopping.”

John _knew_ that Sherlock was inhumanly strong, just as he’d seen him be inhumanly fast, but suddenly feeling himself picked up and _slung_ over a shoulder in a fireman carry was unexpected enough that they were almost to John’s bedroom before John had so much as yelled “Oi!”

Sherlock dumped him unceremoniously on the neatly made bed. John was torn between being annoyed at the means and appreciating the ends by which they were now in his room and horizontal. Then Sherlock crouched over him, his knees bracketing John’s thighs and his hands pinning John’s arms to his sides, and John forgot to think about anything, because Sherlock was staring down at John as though he planned to devour him. And that sounded ruddy brilliant.

“Yes,” he breathed out.

“Yes, what?” Sherlock asked.

“Yes to whatever the hell you’re thinking.”

“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”

“Never do, don’t care. Answer’s yes.”

“You mean it, too…” Sherlock said, voice full of wonder. “I could do _anything_ to you, and you’d let me.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d get on with that,” John said, straining slightly against Sherlock’s grip in an effort to get some bloody _friction_. “Any time now.” 

Sherlock sat back, arse on John’s thighs just below where it would have done the most good. He released John’s arms and began unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. John’s hands dug into the blankets to either side, gripping the fabric tightly.

Empires rose and fell and finally, _finally_ Sherlock reached the last button, tugging the fronts of the shirt out of John’s trousers and pushing each side away from his chest. Slowly, he ran one hand, then the other, over the thin material of John’s vest before tracing the collarbones carefully with his thumbs. His hands slid back down, grabbing the collar of the vest and tearing it in half down the centre.

John felt dissected, pinned open and displayed before Sherlock’s clever gaze.

God, he wasn’t even fully naked yet, and Sherlock was still completely clothed.

Now Sherlock’s hands were joining his eyes in raking over John’s flesh, carefully controlled fingernails crosshatching red lines across his torso.

Something in John snapped.

Sherlock had greatly superior strength, but John had combat training and a lifetime of experience in being the shorter and sometimes weaker person in a fight. He also had the element of surprise for the first five seconds, which was probably the deciding factor.

He knocked Sherlock’s legs out, grabbing him and rolling them over to end up on top.

“Some of us haven’t got all of eternity, you damned tease,” he said, giving up any pretense at delicacy to grab and pull at Sherlock’s belt.

“You’re a constant source of surprises,” Sherlock purred, remaining still while John worked the buckle open. 

The trousers were a bit trickier, distended as they were by Sherlock’s erection. As John brushed against it, easing down the zipper, Sherlock’s body bucked against him, seeking additional contact. John took advantage of the lifting movement to pull Sherlock’s trousers halfway down his thighs. Only wine coloured silk boxers were left, the shade rich against Sherlock’s pale skin, and darker still where his pre-come had dampened it.

John mouthed at the tip of Sherlock’s cock through the silk. The strokes of his tongue caused the wet material to adhere to the head, covering it as though painted on. John’s left hand wrapped around the shaft near the base, the silk keeping the friction of his rapid up and down movements pleasurable, if Sherlock’s keening noises were anything to go by.

John’s right arm was crooked at the elbow to prop him up, his hand snaked underneath to grab a handful of Sherlock’s ass in a grip that would have left finger-shaped bruises on anyone else. 

Even the thin layer of silk suddenly felt like too much of barrier between them. 

Right now Sherlock’s body was his and he was greedy for it, wanted to gorge himself on Sherlock’s pleasure until everything else had burned away.

John used both hands to pull the boxers down Sherlock’s legs, where they tangled with the trousers still slightly above his knees. It was awkward and probably uncomfortable, but taking his mouth off of Sherlock for long enough to get him properly undressed was not an option John was willing to entertain.

He wrapped his mouth around Sherlock’s cock with more enthusiasm than grace, half choking on the length before he remembered the trick of taking in breaths through his nose.

There would be a time later… please god, let there be another time later… to do this slowly, to take his time, to drive them both mad centimeter by careful centimeter. Now, though…

John pulled back slightly from the shaft to concentrate on the tip, alternating hollowing his cheeks with moving his lips up and down rapidly. It was quick and dirty and just on the edge of too rough. His own neglected erection continued rubbing shamelessly against the narrow lee between Sherlock’s calves.

Sherlock made a noise that shared etymological roots with John’s name before grabbing John’s head and pulling it away from his erection. John had only just registered the motion before he felt warmth hitting his chin and chest. That was it for him, the proverbial last straw, and his mind and vision went temporarily and very pleasantly blank. 

Boneless, he collapsed on top of Sherlock’s legs, the cold metal of the belt buckle imprinting its shape below his collarbone.

Too tired to properly open his eyes, he felt, distantly, his body being pulled up towards the head of the bed, cool arms wrapping around him and a sheet over them both.

John slept.

He knew Sherlock would still be there in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's the ending I meant to write, as well as my first attempt at anything explicit. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> The fic as submitted to Holmestice ended here. I wasn't entirely happy with the original stopping point, so the next chapter is a more explicit continuation/ending of the story.
> 
> Sincerest thanks to my betas lareinenoire, analineblue, rosamund, and themegaloo, as well as my cheerleader bskizzle.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Transfusion (the motivational toxicity remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/857324) by [keerawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa)




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